Page 27 of Working the Lode

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Bowmaker

“You’ve been so quiet lately.”

Bowmaker shrugged as he handed an Indian his nightly bowl of roasted beef and pork beans. He’d been forced to employ several to help wash gold after Erskine’s departure to Sutter’s fort. His only rules for them were to work a full day without running off, and to utilize pants or at least breechclouts. They could wear any silly manner of hat they desired. One fellow had fashioned a hat from a gold washing pan, the most valuable tool in the entire state.

Bowmaker replied, “I know. It’s just…my feet wet all day, hot sun on my head.” Zelnora handed him a bowl of beef freshly grilled on a willow stick over coals. He dumped a spoon of beans into it and handed it to the last Indian. “Just making me cracked. The very air around here’s like an oven.” It was a flimsy enough excuse that every man at Lion Island could claim. To distract Zelnora, he asked, “Where’s Quartus?”

“At the blacksmith, sharpening our shovels and axes.”

Bowmaker meandered to his favorite flat rock where they often sat in front of Zelnora’s tent. Raising the whiskey bottle, he poured himself a goodly cupful, and a smaller cupful for Zelnora. “Elias Fowler’s having a bit of a fandango later on, would you like to go?” Fandangos in an all-male mining camp were often riotous affairs. Men took turns affixing a scrap of white cloth to their shirts to designate themselves as women, and the dancing proceeded thus, usually making enough noise to keep the wolves awake.

Zelnora accepted her cup. “That would be pleasant. You know, we could take a prospecting journey down to Sonoran Camp area. It might be a positive force upon your health, and the health of your…outlook. There is a Peruvian harvest of precious metal down there. I heard there were seventeen thousand dollars of flakes and nuggets taken out in one week. The prospect is most favorable.”

Bowmaker nodded. “These diggings are drying up, I’ve noticed over the past week.” Casually, he added, “I sent Erskine down to San Francisco to bid on a lot—there’s one I favor on Pacific Street.”

Zelnora set her cup down. “A lot? A lot for a house? I mean…what do you want to do with a lot?” She was trying to remain aloof, but her eyes shone with the idea of a permanent structure in the settlements.

He looked up at gnarled oak branches. “A house, sure, why not? Brannagh will bid fiercely against me even if he doesn’t have any particular plans for it, but…Erskine is to pretend the lot’s for Sutter, since his plantation has been abandoned by all workers and his creditors are calling for his loan.”

Zelnora didn’t appear to hear anything about Sutter as she scooted off her rock and came to sit on the ground between his thighs. “A house? What sort of house?”

Sticking out his lower lip, Bowmaker appeared to ponder, though he already knew his answer. “Haven’t really thought about it. I do admire Vallejo’s hacienda, with the three foot thick walls and that giant river rock fireplace. I’d like to give you windows with real glass too.” This was his first specific mention of their future together, and as much as he knew it’d please Zelnora, it would dredge up even more fresh questions. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved at the question Zelnora chose to ask.

“You’ve been so reserved ever since…since Valenzuela…robbed us.”

Bowmaker’s cock stiffened, maybe at her thumb rubbing his thigh, or at the mention of Valenzuela.

He had not been able to get that memory out of his mind, Valenzuela tossing him across his knee like a recalcitrant child and slapping his rump so erotically. Valenzuela could have beaten him much harder with the quirt, but he didn’t. Bowmaker was now convinced the spanking was of a carnal nature, and Valenzuela had certainly succeeded if his goal was to make Bowmaker randy. Sure, Valenzuela was probably attempting to rile him into admitting where his gold câche was. Yet he had spent hours mulling on it—was it the spanking itself, or the fact that it was administered by a domineering, tyrannical male, that had firmed his prick and elongated it to unheard-of proportions?

And the stiff ridge of the bandit’s own cock rubbing against his when his ass was upended to the cloudless sky above…One could not falsify an erection. But was it only the joy at having another human helpless in his clutches that had inflamed the lusty brigand? Did he truly not thirst for the taste of another man’s cock in his mouth, as Bowmaker now had to confess he himself did? He felt he dishonored Zelnora and his wishes for a future with her when he envisioned sheathing a cock in his hand and frigging it till it spouted jets of semen.

“Yes…” Bowmaker admitted, leaning back onto his palms and spreading his thighs. “It did…agitate me to have our gold absconded with. And to look like such a feeble beaver kitten in front of you, allowing those dolts to take the gold.”

Zelnora chuckled hoarsely, her hand closing over his cock and squeezing. “Cormack…they took only the hundred dollars or so we had on us—the rest we’d already deposited with Aaron. I know it’s not the value of the gold or the fact we were robbed that irritates you…” She looked casually down to where her thumb tantalized the plum-sized head of his prick under the deerskin. “There is no fault of our own we were overwhelmed by four armed men. If you resisted, one or both of us would’ve been shot.” Her thumb swept the length of the underside of his cock, and Bowmaker’s eyes sli shut. “I am wondering if you feel shamed due to the physical reaction you had at the coaxing he did to tell him where the gold is hidden.”

Ho, boy, if she kept that up for another thirty seconds he would come inside his buckskins. He well nigh would admit to anything right now. “Yes…” he breathed. “I had a…physical reaction. That no-account bastard was pretty near frigging me. It’s shameful that you saw my tool so erect at the hands of a nefarious Spaniard such as that.”

“Bear’s ass, what’s the shame?” Zelnora scoffed. “It was simply a physical reaction. Who wouldn’t be stimulated under such circumstances?”

So Zelnora didn’t think him a fragile poof to be aroused by the rugged touch of another man’s hand. Encouraged by her approval, Bowmaker’s fingers went to the broadfall of his buckskins. “Yes, I think that’s it,” he said offhandedly. “Other…people admiring your body has a salutary effect.” He released his cock for her enjoyment.

Brandishing his member in her hand, Zelnora whispered, “Yes, they were envious of your big plump penis…And who wouldn’t admire you? The men fondled their own crotches, they were so lost in admiration of you.”

This was the manner of talk he wanted to hear. When Zelnora bent her lovely swan’s neck and lapped at his prick, Bowmaker gasped and yanked her to her feet. They stumbled into her tent where he dropped her on her back onto the bed of pine boughs. She gripped his cock in her little fist and circled the head with her lips as he rocked his hips into her, his balls already full to overflowing.

She had admitted she had never licked a man’s penis before meeting him, but she had since been a ravenous student, taking him far into her throat as though she gobbled a bowl of ice cream. He humped her sweet face carefully, her fingertips pressing into the globes of his ass to encourage him. He fucked her mouth so thoroughly that within several minutes he felt about to erupt as he sank his fingers into her masses of shining hair that spilled over the cotton ticking, her locks glossy against his balls.

“Dios maldiga a ese Español,” Bowmaker groaned as he poised to explode into Zelnora’s suctioning mouth.

Just then. Something foreign, cold, and wet pressed against the side of his throat. In his ecstasy, Bowmaker at first thought Zelnora crushed an item such as a necklace against him. When he realized both her hands gripped his ass, he thought perhaps Quartus bungled around with his phrenology tools, studying the shape of his neck.

Then he felt the warm pressure of a solid chest against his back.

And Valenzuela hissed into his ear, “Why do you curse this Spaniard?”